My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

-Psalm 42:3, KJV

Today is September 11th. I will never forget what happened twenty-three years ago on this day while I was a freshman in college.

The world changed that day.

Two towers were taken down. A plane was brought down heroically by passengers in a field in Pennsylvania. People were lost at our Pentagon. It is a day marking a national tragedy and grief.

If you are a thinker, grief can be especially disconcerting for you. It does not paint in the lines, so to speak. This is true about today’s tragedy, and our own tragedy of discovering a cheating spouse.

My encouragement to you when an anniversary comes around is to be kind to yourself. Like a hurting inner child, do not scold that child for hurting. Give him or her comfort and acknowledgement.

This stuff hurts!

The losses were real. It was not right that we suffered this. It is okay to hurt over this. There is no timetable when you have to be “over it.”

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*A version of this post ran previously.